My Favorite Place(s)

I'm looking out the window at more fresh snow, and, quite honestly, I'm sick of it. So, right here, right now, is definitely NOT one of my favorite places. Which brings us to the beauty of a photo prompt from the OBN which asks us to post a photo of our favorite place. Since I can't narrow it down to one, a few photos will have to do.



This photo quality is poor at best, but I don't care. It is one of my favorite trout streams, a beautiful stream in Utah full of brookies, cuts, cut-bows. I caught my first grayling here as well.



I love high mountain meadow streams full of trout. This Colorado stream, at around 10,200', qualifies.



Fly fishing for arctic sheefish - Inconnu - in the Yukon.




And, finally, a little something to chase away the winter blahs.

Happy New Year, a Milestone, and a couple of resolutions

Happy New Year to all who manage to stumble over to this blog. I appreciate your company over here.

Like most of the people in the blog-sphere, I look back on the previous year when the New Year rolls around. This has been a whirlwind, different kind of year for me. I recently passed a personal milestone - 100 Followers to this blog. That stuns me. When I started this little writing project, I had no set goal or idea about people following me. Having 100 people sign up to follow Flowing Waters is truly humbling, and greatly appreciated. Especially when you consider that, for the past 3 months, I have failed miserably at keeping this little blog interesting, or even up to date. For that reason, I will try to make amends by holding some sort of a giveaway to mark the 100 Follower milestone. Watch for upcoming details.

Sure, I've had a lot less time to dedicate to the blog since the OBN started. And - I haven't really gotten a chance to do any fishing in that time, either. But if I'm going to maintain a blog, then I need to do it right. What a perfect segue into a Resolution!!

My first resolution is to fish more often. This will, by definition, lead to more fishing posts!! 2011 is shaping up to be a pretty good fishing year, at least as it looks at the moment. I will be doing a big pike / laker / grayling trip to Misaw Lake in Northern Saskatchewan in June, spring largemouth bass in Alabama, and smallmouth in Quebec in September. there is a good possibility that I'll get out to the Rockies a time or 2 for some fly fishing. So - good things are on the horizon.

Next, I want to continue meeting some of my blog buddies. Last year was a great one for me in that regard - I met Kari - I Don't Wear Pink Camo in the Woods - , Mike -Troutrageous - and Rebecca - the Outdooress. It would be pretty tough to top the quality of those three folks, but I think most of the bloggers I follow and interact with would be equally terrific.

I hope the OBN continues on its meteoric success path, even though I have no idea where I'll find the time to dedicate to it. Oh well - less sleep, I guess. If Owl Jones can live on no sleep, I can at least try it!

Finally, my interest in Tenkara fly fishing has been piqued this past year, and I might need to give it a try. Just what I need - something else to take up my time.

Most of all, I hope to continue reading and admiring the blogs and blog buddies I've found. All of you make me better through your writings and friendship.

Thanks

Wolfy

Christmas Greretings

Thank God for the Holidays - without them I'd never have anything to post!

Actually, I have a pretty full slate of fishing planned for the coming year, so hang in there through these dry months. It will be worthwhile come spring (I hope)

A Merry Christmas to all my cyber-family friends and followers!

Joe

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year . . .

Our first snow of the year







And why is it the most Wonderful Time of the Year???

My son shoveled the driveway today - not me!!!

Thank God for stocked trout

Yesterday, Nov. 22, the temp in suburban Chicagoland topped out at 70 degrees. It poured in the morning on the way to work. But , rather than be dismayed by the crappy weather, my thoughts were "Hmm - this is a lot of 50-60 degree rain hitting the cold ponds. Ought to make the fish a little more active.

Luckily, around noon, the skies cleared up a little, and I made it out to the ponds for one last open water fling. Yes - the same ponds that kicked by butt the last 2 times I was on them. Driving out there, I felt like Charlie Brown, running up to kick the football.

I started out with - and kept on the whole time - a sz. 0 Mepps Aglia with a squirrel tail. The first 15-20 minutes were uneventful - no hits, no sightings. I was fishing the upper few feet in the water column over the deeper (10' - 15') parts of the pond. These areas have been good to me in the past.



First trout of the day






I moved around, and finally got a viscous strike in about 15" of water by the spillway. When the trout came in, it was being followed by another one. Hmmm. I landed the trout, took a picture on my phone (a first for me) and kept casting. then I decided to try another shallow area I had ignored earlier.

Well - the shallows were the key. I landed 3 trout, missed 3 others - including one BIG fish - and saw a few others. All were shallow, and related to wood / brush in the water. It was actually a springtime bass pattern. I have no idea why they were so shallow. Food? Warmth? No idea.



Another one comes in


This will probably be my last Illinois open water fishing of the year. And I really didn't want to end up the year with 3 skunks in row. I'm trying to get out to the Delta in CA or maybe FLA for a day, but we'll have to see how the cards fall.

Finally - please excuse the photo quality. It's a new phone that I am struggling to learn to use. I can barely make a call, let alone take pictures with it.

Finally - a Happy Thanksgiving to all. Enjoy your turkey day in whatever you manner you wish to celebrate.

A much needed, very overdue makeover to Flowing Waters

The look on my blog has been unchanged for the past 26 months. To be honest, I never really cared about the look. The blog was simply something I liked to do. But now that I've been exposed to a myriad of blog looks through the Outdoor Blogger Network, I realize how anemic mine really was. So, I decided to do a face lift. Nothing drastic - just the equivalent of a nose job and a tummy tuck. So far , I think it's OK. PLEASE let me know your thoughts, particularly if you think it sucks.

The other component to the makeover was a much needed re-creation of my Blog List. I broke down my one previous list into 4 lists - one for Fishing Blogs, one for Fly Fishing Blogs, one for General Outdoor Blogs, and one for Photo and Art Blogs. There are a lot more blogs listed than there used to be, and there are many more noteworthy ones who are not found here. Yet.

I discovered a new pattern today

My lunchtime fishing actually happened today. Jesse and I went to the pond for lunch and got in 40 minutes of fishing. The pond was recently stocked with trout, and has the usual assortment of 'gills, crappie, bass, walleye in it. The water was pretty clear and the sun cast its warming rays all over the surface.

And I discovered a new pattern. That pattern:

NEVER post that I'm going fishing with any expectation of success again!!! Every time I do that, I strike out miserably

I've done that twice, and twice I would have had better luck if I had stayed in our company parking lot. This time we could actually SEE trout - they just ignored, or ran from, our lures.

I HATE to end the year on such a lousy note. I may have to try it again tomorrow.

But I'll have NO expectations

Must... Go... Fishing!!!

Temperature is supposed to top out at 70 today, same tomorrow. Might rain tomorrow, though. Then - colder, wintry weather returns, and these unseasonably warm days will be distant memories.

I MUST get out to the ponds today and /or tomorrow over lunch. It will almost certainly be my last hurrah in Illinois for 2010.

(Interestingly enough, I posted a similar piece last November - November 13, to be exact. The weather had warmed up to 55, and I hit the same ponds over lunch. Got a few trout, 2 'gills, and a crappie. I at least know where to start now!)

Stay tuned for the "results" post - I hope they're better than the last post I did, where I built up my expectations, and got beat up by the fish.

Time for my Bucket List

Photo by Adrian Jones
http://ian.umces.edu/imagelibrary/displayimage-1066.html



(For this post, I'm following the suggestion of the OBN prompt regarding Bucket Lists. Since I've spent all my free time doing OBN stuff anyway - and, consequently, not fishing - I have nothing else to write about!!)

Kari Murray, the author of I Don't Wear Pink Camo in the Woods, wrote up her Bucket List last winter and published it on her blog. I've been meaning to do the same, but it just never rose high enough in the mental "to-do" list. I would imagine that's what happens to a lot of Bucket Lists. But, I like the idea of publicly putting out the list of goals, and knocking them off as they occur. As an added plus, by writing them down and making them public, there amay be people out there who can help you facilitate those goals. Of course, this Bucket List will involve only outdoor-related stuff.

Let me begin by pointing out that I HAVE NOT been short-changed in any way, shape, or form with regard to opportunites to pursue my outdoor passions. Traveling for business has afforded me many opportunities others only dream about, and I don't lose sight of the fortunate hand I've been dealt. I also don't apologize for it. It simply is what it is. But I still have a mental list of things I want to do before my time is up. So, without further ado - my Bucket List

1) Visit / fish Alaska

2) See the Northern Lights

3) Catch a Golden Trout on a fly in a stream in California.

4) Catch a pike over 50"

5) Fish the Amazon for peacock bass.

5a) Catch Golden Dorado on the same trip

6) Do a productive fishing trip with my Dad and son.
(We've had one unproductive one so far)

7) Catch a fish in all 50 states - see the list at the right of this post.

8) Catch a good (> 40") musky, on purpose

9) Trek in Nepal

10) Flyfish for brook trout in Labrador

11) Fish the Seychelles

Some of these are never going to happen (unless the Lottery gods smile upon me), some are quite do-able. Of course , I'll take all the help I can get to accomplish these goals. So, if you have a condo in the Seychelles that you're not using for a few weeks and you need someone to look after it - let me know!!

A New Era, and more time in front of the screen of a computer

Today - Monday, October 18, 2010 - marks the official beginning of a project that I hope to someday be able to look back on and say "Geez - remember way back when the OBN started?"

I'm sure some of you have noticed the Outdoor Blogger Network buttons / logos that have been appearing on the sidebars of some blogs over the past few days. Well, today is the official launch of that website. What is the OBN? Why do we need another website? Who cares? Read on and I'll explain in my own simple way.

A few months back, Rebeca Garlock - The Outdooress - and I met to fish some of the fine waters she writes about. That was it - we were going fishing. If you read these pages (and I'm assuming you do, because you're reading this!) you know that we "clicked" from the moment we met. No weird awkward silences, nothing - just like we were old friends fishing together. And, as we found out throughout those couple of days, we shared a few visions of what we would like to see our respective blogs become, and, even more so, where we thought the whole Outdoor Blogging community was heading. Or where we thought it SHOULD BE heading. These conversations were much the same as many we've all had - "What would you do if you won a million dollars?", "What do you want to be when you grow up?", ... [BTW - I have NO intentions of ever growing up!] Just typical, pie-in-the-sky kind of conversations. Except that this one didn't just fade away, into the background, into the graveyard of "What if...". We kept talking about this. And we started laying the groundwork to actually DO the site.

Our vision, in a nutshell, was to develop a place for readers of Outdoor blogs to find the best material on the web, and for Outdoor bloggers to have a centralized "meeting place" - a cyber "neighborhood bar / cafe", if you will. We wanted the Outdoor Blogging community to have something to be a part of, and to be able to amass a common voice in the media if need be. We feel that if we can have a somewhat consolidated voice, that we can become a viable part of the media (strength in numbers, if you will) where, now, we are individual voices in the forest of the industry. Finally, we wanted to create a centralized point of contact for manufacturers of outdoor related products, so they can more easily facilitate product placement for reviews, and have an archived listing of past reviews.

It is a pretty ambitious plan and goal.

And, the one thing we don't ever want to lose sight of (because, if we do, it will be the death of the site) is that the OBN HAS TO be a place people want to log into, and want to be a part of. It has to be fun.

Because, in the end, if we're not having fun doing this stuff - why are we doing it?

If you're a fellow blogger, and want to become part of the Outdoor Blogger Network, click on the OBN button alongside this post and become a part of the network!

Finally, if you've already signed up for the OBN, make sure you return to the site to see how YOU can win some cool stuff in our Inaugural Giveaway!!

Some days you're the pigeon - today, I was the statue

Today was a beautiful Fall day. Actually, it was a little warm - almost 80 - but very little wind, and not a cloud in the sky. My plan actually came to fruition, and I carved out 2 whole hours to fish , from 1:15 to 3:15.




A beautiful Fall day on the pond


My mind raced - stick with the original plan of crankbait / swim jig? Spinnerbaits always do pretty well here - maybe I'll go with one of those. Based on previous Fall excursions here, I figured I'd fish faster rather than at a slow, deliberate pace. I lowered the trolling motor and started on my long awaited 2 hours of solitude and fish un-hooking.

Well, at least the solitude part held true.



A turtle sunning itself



Total tally - 3 hits, no fish hooked and, obviously, no fish landed. A total skunk. And I just don't get it. The first time around the pond - it takes about an hour - yielded nothing for the sunny half. I missed one hit on a 1/24 oz. jig w/ a white grub on the shaded half. I slowed down on the second go-around, and got 1 hit on a 5" Senko. Whiffed on the hit. Finished up by getting a half-assed hit on a Cubby just before I left. Only 2 days before, Jesse - a co-worker at work, and a really good fisherman - put his boat in the pond and fished for an hour. He got about 9-10 bass up to a pound and a half. And a nice walleye. He planned to come out this evening to use the boat for an hour or so. I really didn't feel like calling him with such a pathetic report, but I did. I knew the beating I'd take at work for getting blanked, while he would put a bunch of fish in the boat, would be relentless. He was stunned that it was that bad for me. [I texted him at dark and asked how he did - 2 hits, 1 - 5" bass! It stayed bad] At least I can show my face tomorrow at work.

I just don't know why there was such a marked difference over the past 2 days. Weather conditions have been stable and warming - usually good in the Fall. I threw: crankbaits, spinnerbaits, Chatterbaits, Senkos, grubs - both 3" and 2", Cubbies, buzzbait, swim jig, Sammy. Nothing.

Thank God I wasn't being relied upon to provide for the family, or we would have eating Stone Soup.

"Pre" fishing, sort of

Tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to get a chance to get out on the ponds for a few hours and sample a little Fall largemouth bass fishing. (Barring some unforeseen work crisis)

My "pre-fishing" consists of thinking about what I will use for the bass tomorrow. I figured I would share those thoughts, then post tomorrow nite with photos of my successful, or unsuccessful, outing.

The day was chosen because it was the only one I had that I could possibly get out, and I think it will end up being a good one. We had frost over the weekend, with highs in the 50's. It is now gradually getting warmer, and will be sunny tomorrow. I've had fairly good success on days like this in the past.

My plan going in is to do what I've done with some success in the past - square-lipped crankbaits on the main body of water, and spinnerbaits and swim jigs along the wood. The pond doesn't have much weed to speak of. I'll take one baitcast and one spinning outfit along.

I expect it to be pretty good, and will be a little disappointed if I don't bring a few bass over 2 pounds to hand. But - we'll see.

I'll let you know tomorrow what actually happens!